WHEN PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON announced Friday that Cuban
refugees would no longer be received with open arms by the United
States, he broke with a tradition that for 35 years has set the
tone for relations between the two countries - and shattered the
image of an exile community that believed itself to be special.

"He has pierced the heart of U.S. policy toward Cuba," said
Rafael Penalver, a lawyer who is an immigration expert. "This is a
radical departure from everything we've been used to."

By policy and by practice, Cubans have always received special
treatment from the United States.

Even before Fidel Castro seized control of the government 35
years ago, Cubans gravitated to the United States: In the 1940s and
50s, they went to New York for the music and the opportunities; to
Tampa, Fla., for jobs in the tobacco business; to Key West, Fla.,
for the adventure, the history and the romance.

The proximity of the two countries and the friendly relations
they had enjoyed since the beginning of the century made it natural
for Cubans to always look to "el norte" as a special place and to
"los americanos" as special people. Los americanos, in turn, saw
Cuba as an extension of the United States and visited the island
frequently for business and pleasure.

After Castro, the flow from Cuba to the States intensified.
Almost a million Cubans have immigrated in the past three decades
in their quest for freedom.

But even if the reasons and the size of the immigration
changed, the United States embraced almost all Cuban refugees who
came to its shores for asylum.

In the early 1960s, there was Camarioca, a boatlift out of
Matanzas, and Operation Pedro Pan, which brought hundreds of
unaccompanied children to the United States.

By 1966, so many Cubans had settled in the United States that
Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act, allowing Cubans to apply
for residency a year and a day after they entered this country
legally.

In the late 1960s, the so-called Freedom Flights from Cuba to
Miami helped reunite families separated during the Pedro Pan years. …

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